The album takes its name from the Marx Brothers film of the same name, which the band watched one night at the studio complex when recording. The 1976 follow-up album, A Day at the Races, was also named after a Marx brothers film.
1. Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)
"Death on Two Legs (Dedicated to...)" could only be referred to as Mercury's hate letter toward Queen's ex-manager, Norman Sheffield, who is reputed to have mistreated the band and abused his role as their manager from 1972-1975. Though it never made a direct reference to him, upon listening to the song, Sheffield attempted to sue the band for defamation. This was how the public found who the song was about. Sheffield later admitted that it probably gave the band an incentive to dedicate the song to him after he decided to sue them. During live performances, Mercury would usually re-dedicate the song to "a real motherfucker of a gentleman", although this line was censored out on the version that appeared on their Live Killers album in 1979, possibly to avoid further legal proceedings.
In the "Classic Albums" documentary about the making of A Night at the Opera, Brian May stated that the band at first was somewhat put back by the incisiveness of Mercury's lyrics. After the song came together, it was agreed that the "author should have his way," and the song went on as penned.
As with "Bohemian Rhapsody", most of the guitar parts on this song were initially played on piano by Mercury, to demonstrate to Brian May how they needed to be played on guitar.
"Death on Two Legs" was on the setlist right into The Game Tour in 1980, then fell off the setlist half way through the tour.
2. Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon
"Lazing on a Sunday Afternoon" was another song by Mercury. He played piano and did all of the vocals. The lead vocal was sung in studio, produced through headphones elsewhere in the studio in a tin bucket. A microphone picked up the sound from the bucket, which gives it a hollow "megaphone" sound. The guitar solo is also reported to have been recorded on the vocal track, as there were no more tracks to record on.[citation needed] The key change going into the guitar solo (Eb to A) is a tritone relationship, making it a jarring, but very effective, transition into the key of D for the next track, "I'm in Love with My Car".
3. I'm in Love with My Car
"I'm in Love with My Car" is amongst Roger Taylor's most famous songs in the Queen catalogue. The song was initially taken as a joke by Brian May, who thought that Taylor was not serious when he heard a demo recording.
Taylor played the guitars in the original demo, but were later re-recorded by May on his Red Special. The lead vocals and the majority of the harmonies were sung by Roger Taylor, with assistance from Freddie Mercury and Brian May in the verbal harmonies of the second chorus. The revving sounds at the conclusion of the song were recorded by Taylor's then current car, an Alfa Romeo. The lyrics were inspired by one of the band's roadies, Johnathan Harris, whose Triumph TR4 was evidently the "love of his life". The song is dedicated to him, the album says: "Dedicated to Johnathan Harris, boy racer to the end".
When it came down to releasing the album's first single, Taylor was so fond of his song that he urged Mercury (author of the first single, "Bohemian Rhapsody") to allow it to be the B-side and reportedly locked himself in a cupboard until Mercury agreed. This decision would later become the cause of much internal friction in the band, in that while it was only the B-side, it generated an equal amount of publishing royalties for Taylor as the main single did for Mercury.
The song was often played live during the '77-'81 period, again for the Queen + Paul Rodgers tour in 2005 and the Rock the Cosmos Tour in 2008. Taylor sang it from the drums while Mercury played piano and provided backing vocals. Roger would recover the song for his concerts with The Cross and solo tours, where instead of drums he played rhythm guitar.
4. You're My Best Friend
"You're My Best Friend" is a song penned by John Deacon and performed by British rock band Queen. It was originally included on the A Night at the Opera album in 1975, and later released as a single. This song also appeared on the Greatest Hits (1981) album.
Deacon wrote the song for his wife, Veronica, to whom he remains married to this day. In this song, he plays a Wurlitzer electric piano in addition to bass guitar. The characteristic 'bark' of the Wurlitzer's bass notes plays a prominent role in the song. During live performances, the band used a grand piano rather than an electric, and it would be played by Freddie Mercury, while Deacon played the bass guitar.
For the music video, it shows the band in a huge ballroom surrounded by over one thousand candles, including a huge chandelier hung above them on the ceiling. The video was filmed in the summer of 1976. (May later mentioned that the video was shot in the middle of a very unpleasant heatwave and the ballroom in which they were filming did not have air conditioning.) Also, Deacon is seen playing a grand piano, even though he plays a regular electric on the recording.
The band answered Tom Browne on 24 December 1977 in a live BBC Radio One interview, regarding Deacon's control of the piano for the recording:
“ Well, Freddie didn’t like the electric piano, so I took it home and I started to learn on the electric piano and basically that’s the song that came out you know when I was learning to play piano. It was written on that instrument and it sounds best on that. You know, often on the instrument that you wrote the song on. ”—John Deacon
“ I refused to play the damn thing (the Wurlitzer). It’s tiny and horrible and I don’t like them. Why play those things when you’ve got a lovely superb grand piano? No, I think, basically what he [John] is trying to say is it was the desired effect. ”—Freddie Mercury
Cultural impact
* The song can be heard in Kenneth Brannagh's 1992 film Peter's Friends.
* The song was featured in a 2000 episode of That '70s Show entitled "Hyde's Father."
* The song was featured at the end of the Simpsons episode "Moe Baby Blues" in 2003.
* The song was featured in the ending credits of the 2004 film Shaun of the Dead.
* The song was also featured in the 2005 Nintendo Gamecube game Karaoke Revolution Party.
* The song was played during the final moments of the Will & Grace finale in May 2006.
* The song was played during the opening credits in the 2006 film The Break-Up.
* The song was featured in a My Name Is Earl episode "Something to Live For" in 2006.
* The song was featured at the end of the 2007 movie I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry.
* The song was featured in a 2007 "AT&T" commercial.
* Cheese (voiced by Candi Milo) sang this song in the 2007 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade along with other characters from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends.
* The song is currently featured for "Carnival Cruise Lines" new brand campaign, "Let the Fun Begin".
* The song was featured in a television trailer for the 2008 film, Pineapple Express.
5. '39
'39 is a song by Brian May. May sings lead vocals on its skiffle-like arrangement, featuring three- and four-part harmony vocals – including passages of falsetto during the middle bridge section, which culminate in an A5 sung by Roger Taylor.
"'39" is the 39th song in the Queen studio album chronology.
The acoustic guitars were recorded with a capo on the first fret.
"'39" was released as the B-side to "You're My Best Friend", so the two singles from A Night at the Opera, the other being "Bohemian Rhapsody/I'm In Love With My Car" comprised one composition from each of the four members of Queen.
The song's lyrics are a science fiction short story which concerns twenty volunteers who leave a dying Earth on a spaceship in search of new worlds to settle. They return to report success, 100 calendar years later, with only a single year passing from the volunteers' perspective (due to time dilation). The lyrics imply that the song's protagonist faces his grandchild upon return to Earth: For so many years have gone/though I'm older but a year/your mother's eyes from your eyes/cry to me. This, and the fact that all his peers and friends have died, are a terrible grief to the protagonist, as the final words insist: For my life/still ahead/pity me!
To provide 100 years' time dilation on Earth in only one year of spaceship time, the velocity of the spaceship must average to 99.995% of the speed of light.
Brian May described the song as follows:
It's a science fiction story. It's the story about someone who goes away and leaves his family and... because of the time dilation effect, when you go away, the people on Earth have aged a lot more than he has when he comes home. He's aged a year and they've aged 100 years. So, instead of coming back to his wife, he comes back to his daughter and he can see his wife in his daughter... a strange story. I think, also, I had in mind a story of Herman Hesse, which I think is called "The River" (actually "The Poet" [1]). A man leaves his hometown and has lots of travels and then comes back and observes his hometown from the other side of the river. He sees it in a different light, having been away and experienced all those different things. He sees it in a very illuminating way, 'cause I felt a little bit like that about my home at the time as well, having been away and seen this vastly different world of rock music... totally different from the way I was brought up, and I had those feelings about home.
In the first verse, the science-fictional nature of the story is hidden but hinted at by two non-rhyming couplets, which should rhyme based on the structure of the song. "The sweetest sight ever seen" is "rhymed" with the word "few", suggesting a line like "the sweetest ship ever flew", and "sailed across the milky seas" is rhymed with the word "day", suggesting the line "sailed across the Milky Way".
Cover versions
* George Michael performed '39 at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert before performing "Somebody to Love," which was subsequenly released as a single and its profits donated.
* "'39" was covered by Ingram Hill on the 2005 tribute album Killer Queen: A Tribute to Queen.
* The intro of "'39" was used by the German band Puhdys for the intro of their own song "Alt wie ein Baum" (As old as a tree) in 1976.
* Brian May and Roger Taylor played the song with the Foo Fighters live at the O2 in November 2007.
* The song was covered by the Danish rock band Pretty Maids on the acoustic album Stripped.
* The punk rock band Swingin' Utters recorded a cover of '39 on a BYO Records Swingin' Utters/Youth Brigade Split album.
* Finnish musician Neumann recorded a cover version of '39 with Finnish (majorly different) lyrics.
* Mägo de Oz recorded a cover version in the album "La ciudad de los arboles" with an alternative lyric
* Pato Fu used a loop of the middle vocal part in "Cuidado é fragil"(Ruido Rosa) but didn't get clearance for it.
On live versions of the song Freddie Mercury would often sing the lead vocal part instead of Brian May, who would sing backup vocals and play 12-string guitar. Roger Taylor would play a tambourine and a bass drum at the same time, and sing the high pitched notes in the middle section. John Deacon would play the walking bass line on a fretless bass guitar instead of an upright bass.
6. Sweet Lady
"Sweet Lady" is a heavy metal number written by May. Lyrically and musically, it's usually thought to precede 'Tie Your Mother Down' as a loud, riff-heavy expression of disdain for the author's romantic interest. However, 'Tie Your Mother Down' had already been written at the time.
The song is an unusual rock style in 3/4 meter (which gives way to 4/4 at the bridge). Roger Taylor remembers it as the most difficult drumming part he ever recorded. As DTS tracks reveal, there are several off-pitch notes by Freddie Mercury on the lead vocal, something covered up by harmonies and overdubbing.
7. Seaside Rendezvous
"Seaside Rendezvous", written by Mercury, is probably best known for the "musical" bridge section which begins at around 0:51 into the song. The section is performed entirely by Mercury and Taylor using their voices alone. Mercury imitates woodwind instruments including a clarinet and Taylor mostly brass instruments, including tubas and trumpets, and even a kazoo. The tap dance segment is also "performed" by Mercury and Taylor on the mixing desk with thimbles on their fingers. Mercury plays both grand piano and jangle honky-tonk.
8. The Prophet's Song
"The Prophet's Song" was composed by May. On the show In the Studio with Redbeard, which spotlighted A Night at the Opera, May explained that he wrote the song after a dream he'd had while he was recovering from being ill while recording the Sheer Heart Attack album, and is the source of some of the lyrics. He spent several days putting it together, and it includes a vocal canon sung first by Mercury, then by Mercury, Taylor and May. The vocal, and later instrumental canon was produced by early tape delay devices. It is a heavy and dark number with a strong progressive rock influence. At over eight minutes in length, is also Queen's longest song (not counting the untitled instrumental track on Made in Heaven).
As detailed by Brian May in a documentary about this album, the speed-up effect that happens in the middle of the guitar solo was achieved by starting a reel-to-reel player with the tape on it, as the original tape player was stopped.
The dream he had was about The Great Flood, and lyrics have references from the Bible and the Noah's Ark account.
9. Love Of My Life
"Love of My Life" is a ballad from the album A Night at the Opera by English rock band Queen. A live release of the single reached number 1 in Argentina and Brazil, in 1979. The preceding track on the album, "The Prophet's Song", flows seamlessly into this song, although the two were never performed back to back live.
Freddie Mercury wrote it on the piano and guitarist Brian May rearranged the song for acoustic 12-string guitar to facilitate live performances. May contributed occasional guitar phrases to the original recording and played the swooping harp glissandos by pasting together multiple takes of single chords. The song is a good example of Mercury's familiarity with rubato phrasing, showcasing his classical piano influences, notably by Chopin and Beethoven.
The song was written for Mary Austin, Mercury's girlfriend at the time.
"Love of My Life" was such a concert favourite that Mercury frequently stopped singing and allowed the audience to take over. It was especially well received during concerts in South America, and the band released the song as a single there.
The 1979 album Live Killers features a live version of the song. It was also performed during the Queen Rock Montreal, Live at the Bowl, Live at Wembley '86, and Return of the Champions concerts. There is a live video of the song on the DVD Greatest Video Hits 1 of a May-Mercury-Audience trio in Tokyo, 1979. The audio for that clip came from a 1979 performance in Frankfurt.
After Mercury's death, Brian May usually dedicated the song to the late Freddie Mercury. A notable exception is the Sheffield show which yielded the Return of the Champions CD and DVD. At that show, May announced that Mercury's mother was at the show and he dedicated the song to her. In the Queen + Paul Rodgers Tour, May would sing a few lines of the song, then let the audience take over. He did this on every verse.
Numerous artists have released a cover of "Love of My Life" commercially, including Declan Galbraith, Scorpions, Michael Burgess, Extreme (which featured Brian May), Rose Marie, Elaine Paige, Mark Slaughter, Antonio Vega, Norma Waterson and Iris.
10. Good Company
"Good Company" was written and sung by Brian May. All vocals are by May, who also plays a George Formby Ukelele-Banjo (also known as banjolele) that he'd used one year previously in 'Bring Back That Leroy Brown'.
The recording is remarkable for featuring an elaborate recreation of a Dixieland-style jazz band, produced by May using his Red Special guitar, along with various forms of effects processing.
The song is a narrative tale, told by a man who in young age was advised by his father to "take care of those you call your own, and keep good company." In his younger years, the singer follows his father's advice, keeping his friends and marrying a girl named Sally. However, after their marriage, he begins to lose interest in his friends, who gradually disappear. As he grows older, he becomes increasingly skilled at and dedicated to his occupation, working long nights and neglecting his family.
Eventually, the singer's efforts are rewarded, he begins his own Limited company (which is also a pun, since throughout the rest of the song "company" is used in the sense of companions). Even more dedicated to his business, he hardly notices as his wife leaves him.
The song finishes with the speaker as an elderly man, puffing his pipe and pondering the lessons of his life, which he has no one left to share with.
11. Bohemian Rhapsody
"Bohemian Rhapsody" was written by Freddie Mercury. Is in the style of a stream-of-consciousness nightmare that has unusual song structure, more akin to a classical rhapsody than popular music. The song has no chorus, instead consisting of seemingly disjointed sections including operatic segments, an a cappella passage, and a heavy rock solo.
When it was released as a single, "Bohemian Rhapsody" became an unlikely commercial success, staying at the top of the UK Singles Chart for nine weeks. It has become one of the UK's best ever selling singles (with sales of 2,176,000), bettered only by Band Aid's "Do They Know It's Christmas?" and Elton John's "Candle In The Wind 1997".
The single was accompanied by a promotional video; considered groundbreaking, it helped establish the visual language of the modern music video. Although critical reaction was initially mixed, especially in America, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is often considered to be Queen's magnum opus and one of their all-time greatest songs. In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked "Bohemian Rhapsody" at number 163 on its list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.
Freddie Mercury wrote most of "Bohemian Rhapsody" at his home in Holland Road, Kensington, in West London. The song's producer, Roy Thomas Baker, related how Mercury once played the opening ballad section on the piano for him: "He played the beginning on the piano, then stopped and said, "And this is where the opera section comes in!" Then we went out to eat dinner." Guitarist Brian May says the band thought that Mercury's blueprint for the song was "intriguing and original, and worthy of work". Much of Queen's material was written in the studio according to May, but this song "was all in Freddie's mind" before they started. Music scholar Sheila Whiteley suggests that "the title draws strongly on contemporary rock ideology, the individualism of the bohemian artists' world, with rhapsody affirming the romantic ideals of art rock". Commenting on bohemianism, Judith Peraino said that "Mercury intended... [this song] to be a 'mock opera', something outside the norm of rock songs, and it does follow a certain operatic logic: choruses of multi-tracked voices alternate with arialike solos, the emotions are excessive, the plot confusing."
The song was recorded over three weeks, beginning at Rockfield Studio 1 near Monmouth on 24 August 1975, after a 3-week rehearsal in Herefordshire. During the making of the track, an additional four studios – Roundhouse, SARM (East), Scorpion, and Wessex – were used. According to some band members, Mercury mentally prepared the song beforehand and directed the band throughout. Mercury used a Bechstein "concert grand" piano, which he played in the promotional video and the UK tour. It was the most expensive single ever made and remains one of the most elaborate recordings in music history.
May, Mercury, and Taylor sang their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs. Since the studios of the time only offered 24-track analogue tape, it was necessary for the three to overdub themselves many times and "bounce" these down to successive sub-mixes. In the end, eighth-generation tapes were used. The tapes were passed over the recording heads so frequently that the oxide layer began to wear off, and the normally opaque tapes turned nearly transparent. The various sections of tape containing the desired submixes had to be spliced (cut with razor blades and assembled in the correct sequence using adhesive tape).
The song consists of six sections: introduction, ballad, guitar solo, "opera", rock, and outro. This format, with abrupt changes in style, tone, and tempo, was unusual to rock music. An embryonic version of this style had already been utilised by the band in "My Fairy King". The New York Times commented that "the song's most distinct feature is the fatalistic lyrics". Mercury refused to explain his composition other than saying it was about relationships; the band is still protective of the song's secret. Following the single's release, Mercury said:
"It's one of those songs which has such a fantasy feel about it. I think people should just listen to it, think about it, and then make up their own minds as to what it says to them...'Bohemian Rhapsody' didn't just come out of thin air. I did a bit of research although it was tongue-in-cheek and mock opera. Why not?"
Brian May confirms suggestions that the song contained veiled references to Mercury's personal traumas. He recalls "Freddie was a very complex person: flippant and funny on the surface, but he concealed insecurities and problems in squaring up his life with his childhood. He never explained the lyrics, but I think he put a lot of himself into that song." May, though, says the band had agreed that the core of a lyric was a private issue for the composer.In a BBC Three documentary about the making of "Bohemian Rhapsody", Roger Taylor maintains that the true meaning of the song is "fairly self-explanatory with just a bit of nonsense in the middle".
However, when the band released a Greatest Hits cassette in Iran, a leaflet in Persian was included with translation and explanations (refers to a book published in Iran called "The March of the black Queen" by "Sarah Sefati" & "Farhad Arkani", which included the whole biography of the band & complete lyrics with Persian translation [2000]). In the explanation, Queen states that "Bohemian Rhapsody" is about a young man who has accidentally killed someone and, like Faust, sold his soul to the devil. On the night before his execution, he calls for God in Arabic, "Bismillah" (Basmala), and with the help of angels, regains his soul from Shaitan.
Despite this, critics, both journalistic and academic, have speculated over the meaning behind the song's lyrics. Some believe the lyrics describe a suicidal murderer hunted by demons or depict events just preceding an execution. The latter explanation points to Albert Camus's novel The Stranger, in which a young man confesses to an impulsive murder and has an epiphany before he is executed, as probable inspiration. Others believe the lyrics were only written to fit with the music, and have no meaning; Kenny Everett quoted Mercury as claiming the lyrics were simply "random rhyming nonsense."
Still others interpreted them as Mercury's way of dealing with personal issues.[4] Music scholar Sheila Whiteley observes that Mercury reached a turning point in his personal life in the year he wrote "Bohemian Rhapsody".[6] He had been living with Mary Austin for seven years but had just embarked on his first gay love affair. She suggests that the song provides an insight into Mercury's emotional state at the time, "living with Mary ("Mama", as in Mother Mary) and wanting to break away "Mama Mia let me go")".
Introduction (0:00–0:48)
The song begins with a close four-part harmony a cappella introduction in B♭ - entirely multi track recordings of Mercury although the video has all four members lip-syncing this part. The lyrics question whether life is "real" or "just fantasy" before concluding that there can be "no escape from reality." Scholar Sheila Whiteley comments:
"The multi-tracked vocals... the rhythm following the natural inflection of the words, the block chords and lack of foreground melody creating an underlying ambiguity... heightened by the harmonic change from B♭ (6) to C7 in bars 1 and 2; the boundaries between "the real life" and "fantasy" are marked by instability and "caught in a landslide"."
Highlighting the phallic nature of guns, Peraino also suggests that the song is a "melodrama of homoeroticism", although, unlike Whiteley, she does not draw upon biographical details. Peraino gives an Oedipal reading, quoting some lyrics with sexual connotations ("Too late, my time has come/Sends shivers down my spine/Body's aching all the time"). Like Whiteley, Peraino identifies the themes of both guilt and desire.
"For many adolescents listening to the song, these phrases could describe the physical sensations of sexual awakening and the conflicting emotions that accompany them. If that sexual awakening is queer, then the greater the guilt and the need for confession."
After 15 seconds, the grand piano enters, and Mercury's voice alternates with the other vocal parts. The narrator introduces himself as "just a poor boy" but declares that he "needs no sympathy" because he is "easy come, easy go"; chromatic side-slipping on "easy come, easy go" highlight the dream-like atmosphere. The end of this section is marked by the bass entrance and the familiar cross-handed piano vamp in B♭.
Ballad (0:48–2:36)
The piano continues the 4-bar vamp in B♭. Deacon's bass guitar enters playing the first note, and the vocals change from harmony to an impassioned solo performance by Mercury. The narrator explains to his mother that he has "just killed a man", with "a gun against his head" and with that act thrown his life away. This "confessional" section, Whiteley comments, is "affirmative of the nurturant and life-giving force of the feminine and the need for absolution."
The chromatic bass line brings about a modulation to E♭, underpinning the mood of desperation. Taylor's drums enter (1:19), (this features the 1-1-2 rhythm of "We Will Rock You" in ballad form) and the narrator makes the second of several invocations to his "mama" in the new key, reusing the original theme. The narrator explains his regret over "mak[ing] you cry" and urging mama to "carry on as if nothing really matters" to him. A truncated phrase connects a two repeat of the vamp in B♭.
As the ballad proceeds into its second verse, the narrator shows how tired and beat down he is by his actions (as May enters on guitar and mimics the upper range of the piano at 1:50). May sends "shivers down my spine" by scratching the strings on the other side of the bridge. The narrator bids the world goodbye announcing he has got to go and prepares to "face the truth" admitting "I don't want to die / I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all". Another chromatic bass descent brings a modulation to the key of A, and the "Opera" section.
Guitar solo (2:36–3:03)
As Mercury sings the rising line "I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all", the band builds in intensity, leading up to a guitar solo by May that serves as the bridge from ballad to opera. The intensity continues to build, but once the bass line completes its descent establishing the new key, the entire band cuts out abruptly at 3:03 except for quiet A major quaver chords on the piano.
Producer Baker recalls that May's solo was done on only one track, rather than recording multiple tracks. May stated that he wanted to compose "a little tune that would be a counterpart to the main melody; I didn't just want to play the melody".[3] The guitarist said that his better material stems from this way of working: in which he thought of the tune before playing it: "the fingers tend to be predictable unless being led by the brain".[3]
Judith Peraino comments that the "young hero, having confessed his (sexual) crime to his mother leaves home to "face the truth" and finds himself in a queer world of Italian opera." His voyage is represented by a melodious guitar solo that abruptly segues to a simple piano beat."[14] She compares the instrumental interlude to the "same structural moment" in The Beatles' "A Day in the Life", when "the grand orchestral texture of the first dreamy section suddenly comes to a crashing cadence and is followed by a simple piano beat."
Opera (3:03–4:07)
A rapid series of rhythmic and harmonic changes introduces a pseudo-operatic midsection, which contains the bulk of the elaborate vocal multi-tracking, depicting the narrator's descent into hell. While the underlying pulse of the song is maintained, the dynamics vary greatly from bar to bar, from only Mercury's voice accompanied by a piano, to a multi-voice choir supported by drums, bass, piano and a timpani. The choir effect was created by having May, Mercury, and Taylor sing their vocal parts continually for ten to twelve hours a day, resulting in 180 separate overdubs. These overdubs were then combined into successive submixes. According to Roger Taylor, the voices of May, Mercury and himself combined created a wide vocal range: "Brian could get down quite low, Freddie had a powerful voice through the middle, and I was good at the high stuff." The band wanted to create "a wall of sound, that starts down and goes all the way up".[8] The band used the bell effect for lyrics "Magnifico" and "Let me go". Also, on "Let me go", Taylor singing the top section carries his note on further after the rest of the "choir" have stopped singing.
Lyrical references in this passage include Scaramouche, the fandango, Galileo Galilei, Figaro and "Bismillah," as rival factions fight over the narrator's soul. Peraino calls the sequence both a "comic courtroom trial and a rite of passage ... one chorus prosecutes, another defends, while the hero presents himself as meek through mily."[14] The song's introduction is recalled with the chromatic inflection on "I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me." The section concludes with a full choral treatment of the lyric "Beelzebub has a devil put aside for me!", on a block B♭ major chord. Roger Taylor tops the final chord with a falsetto B♭ in the sixth octave (Bb6).
Using the 24-track technology available at the time, the "opera" section took about three weeks to finish.[4] Producer Roy Thomas Baker said "Every time Freddie came up with another 'Galileo', I would add another piece of tape to the reel.[5] Baker recalls that they kept wearing out the tape, which meant having to do transfers.[4]
Relating the theme of entrapment to Mercury wanting to express his sexuality, Whiteley points out the "heavy timbres of the lower voices ... traditionally connote the masculine ("We will not let you go") while the shrill higher voices in the first inversion chords imply the feminine 'other' ("Let me go"). They signal entrapment and a plea for release."
Hard rock (4:08–4:55)
The operatic section leads into an aggressive hard rock musical interlude with a guitar riff written by Mercury. At 4:15, a double-tracked Mercury sings angry lyrics addressed to an unspecified "you", accusing him/her of betrayal and abuse and insisting "can't do this to me, baby" - which could be interpreted as a flashback to certain events that led to the earlier ballad section ("just killed a man"). Three ascending guitar runs follow, which May described as something he had to battle with when performing the song live. Mercury then plays a similar run on the piano. It took three attempts for Mercury to hit the C5 in the "die" of "So you think you can love me and leave me to die", further explained by the more than one vocal track for just that one word.
Peraino writes that following the courtroom trial "the hero becomes defiant ["So you think you can stone me..."] and emerges victorious from the trial by opera as a rock and roll rebel".[15] Critic Sheila Whitely related this "heightened sense of urgency" to Mercury's "inner turmoil [of] leaving the security of Mary Austin, coming to terms with gay life, and living with a man." Although she comments that Austin was understanding and remained a close friend, "the "just gotta get out" supplies a metaphor for desperation as it moves towards the climax".
Outro (4:55–5:55)
After Mercury plays ascending octaves of notes from the B♭ mixolydian scale, the song then returns to the tempo and form of the introduction. A guitar accompanies the chorus "ooh, ooh yeah, ooh yeah". A double-tracked twin guitar melody is played through an amplifier designed by John Deacon, affectionately nicknamed the "Deacy Amp". Mercury's line "Nothing really matters..." appears again, "cradled by light piano arpeggios suggesting both resignation (minor tonalities) and a new sense of freedom in the wide vocal span."[13]
According to music scholar Judith Peraino, this final section adds "a level of complex resistance to the song's already charming subversion of macho rock and roll." This resistance is achieved through the "bohemian stance toward identity, which involves a necessarily changeable self-definition ("Any way the wind blows")."[15] The final line, "Any way the wind blows", is followed by the quiet sound of a large tam-tam that finally expels the tension built up throughout the song.
When the band wanted to release the single in 1975, various executives suggested to them that, at 5 minutes and 55 seconds, it was too long and would never be a hit. According to producer Roy Thomas Baker, he and the band bypassed this corporate decision by playing the song for Capital Radio DJ Kenny Everett: "we had a reel-to-reel copy but we told him he could only have it if he promised not to play it. 'I won't play it,' he said, winking..."[5] Their plan worked – Everett teased his listeners by playing only parts of the song. Audience demand intensified when Everett played the full song on his show 14 times in two days.[4] Hordes of fans attempted to buy the single the following Monday, only to be told by record store that it had not yet been released.[5] The same weekend, Paul Drew, who ran the RKO stations in the States, heard the track on Everett's show in London. Drew managed to get a copy of the tape and started to play it in the States, which forced the hand of Queen's USA label, Elektra. In an interview with Sound on Sound, Baker reflects that "it was a strange situation where radio on both sides of the Atlantic was breaking a record that the record companies said would never get airplay!"[5] Eventually the unedited single was released, with "I'm in Love with My Car" as the B-side.
The song dominated the 1975 UK Christmas number one, holding the top position for nine weeks.[13] "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the first song ever to get to number one twice with the same version,[16] and is also the only single to have been UK Christmas Number 1 twice with the same version. The second was upon its re-release (as a double A-side single with "These Are the Days of Our Lives") in 1991 following Mercury's death, staying at number one for five weeks.
In the United States, the single was a success (although on a smaller scale from that of the UK release). The original single, released in early 1976, reached #9 on the Billboard Hot 100, while a re-release in 1992 (released to tie in with the song's appearance in the hit film Wayne's World) hit #2. In a retrospective interview, Anthony DeCurtis from Rolling Stone magazine explains the song's relatively poor performance in the US charts by saying that it's "the quintessential example of the kind of thing that doesn't exactly go over well in America."[3] Queen's popularity in America was also harmed when they appeared in drag for their "I Want to Break Free" video, Americans not knowing it was a parody of the British soap opera Coronation Street. However, according to Anthony DeCurtis, its use in Wayne's World "masculinised the song and made it OK for people."
Though some artists, including Queen themselves (for example, "Keep Yourself Alive," "Seven Seas Of Rhye," "Killer Queen" and "Liar" already had "pop promos", as they were known at the time), had made video clips to accompany songs, it wasn't until after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody" that it became regular practice for record companies to produce promo videos for artists' single releases. These could then be shown on television shows, such as the BBC's Top of the Pops, without the need for the artist to appear in person. A promo video also allowed the artist to have their music broadcast and accompanied by their own choice of visuals, rather than dancers such as Pan's People. According to May, the video was produced so that the band could avoid miming on Top of the Pops, since it did not fit their style.[3] He says "it was a reaction to having to go on the normal programmes and do the normal mime, so we sold our story" with the video.[17] May explains that they would have looked off miming to such a complex song.[11] Also, the band knew that they would be touring and unable to appear on the programme anyway.[3] The video has been hailed as launching the MTV age.[8][11]
The band was signed to a company called Trillian, who supplied sports coverage for ITV. They hired one of their trucks and got it to Elstree Studios, where the band were rehearsing for their tour. The video was directed by Bruce Gowers, who had directed a video of the band's 1974 performance at the Rainbow Theatre in London, and was filmed by cameraman Barry Dodd and assistant director/floor manager Jim McCutcheon.[3] The video took only four hours to film and cost between £40,000[5] and £45,000.[3] The director says that the band was involved in the discussion of the video and the end result, and "was a co-operative to that extent, but there was only one leader."
The video opens with a shot of the four band members in near darkness as they sing the a cappella part. The lights fade up, and the shots cross-fade into close-ups of Freddie. The composition of the shot is the same as Mick Rock's cover photograph for their previous album Queen II. The photo, inspired by a photograph of actress Marlene Dietrich, was the band's favourite image of themselves.[3]
All of the special effects were achieved during the recording. The effect of the face zooming away was accomplished by pointing the camera at a monitor, giving visual feedback, a visual glare, analogous to audio feedback. The honeycomb effect was achieved by using a shaped lens.[3]
Then it fades into them playing their instruments. In the opera section of the video, it goes back to them just standing there, then performing on the stage in the heavy metal part, and in the closing seconds of the video Roger Taylor is depicted stripped to the waist, striking the tam tam in the manner of the trademark of the Rank Organisation's Gongman, familiar in the UK as the opening of all Rank film productions.
The video was edited within five hours because it was due to be broadcast the same week in which it was filmed. It was shipped to the BBC as soon as it was completed and aired for the first time on Top of the Pops in November 1975.[3] After a few weeks at number 1, an alternative edit of the video was created. The most obvious difference is the flames superimposed over the introduction.
Nearly a third of respondents in a 2007 poll commissioned by the UK telephone company O2 voted this video as "the UK's best music video of all time".
Although the song has become one of the most revered in popular music history, some initial critical reaction was poor. Melody Maker said that Queen "contrived to approximate the demented fury of the Balham Amateur Operatic Society performing The Pirates of Penzance".[3] The newspaper's critic Allan Jones heard only a "superficially impressive pastiche" of operatic styles.[11]
The song has won several awards, and has been covered and parodied by many artists. In 1977, only two years after its release, the British Phonographic Industry named "Bohemian Rhapsody" as the best British single of the period 1952-77.[8][20] It is a regular entry in greatest-songs polls, and it was named by the Guinness Book of Records in 2002 as the top British single of all time.[4]
It also came in tenth in a BBC World Service poll to find the world's favourite song.[21] In 2000 it came second to "Imagine" by John Lennon in a Channel 4 television poll of The 100 Best Number 1s. It has been in the top 5 of the Dutch annual "Top 100 Aller Tijden" ("All-Time Top 100 Singles") since 1977, reaching #1 eight times.[22] In the annual "Top 2000" (maintained since 1999) it had, until 2005, been #1 every year. In 2005, it went down one place to #2, only to reclaim #1 in 2006 again. In the 2007 and 2008 editions, it once again ended at the top. For popularity comparison: the 2005 edition of the top 2000 was listened to by more than 60% of the total Dutch populace.
In 2004 the song was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame.[23] As of 2004, "Bohemian Rhapsody" is the second most played song on British radio, in clubs and on jukeboxes collectively, after Procol Harum's "A Whiter Shade of Pale".[24] On 30 September 2007 on the Radio 1 Chart Show, for BBC Radio 1's 40th birthday, it was revealed that "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the most played song since Radio 1's launch. In 2004, BBC Three featured the song as part of their The Story of... series of documentaries dedicated to specific songs. First broadcast in December 2004, the programme charted the history of the song, discussed its credentials, and took some members of Queen back to one of the studios in which it was recorded.
The song enjoyed renewed popularity in 1992 as part of the soundtrack to the film Wayne's World. The film's director, Penelope Spheeris, was hesitant to use the song, as it did not entirely fit with the lead characters, who were fans of harder rock and heavy metal. However, Mike Myers insisted that the song fit the scene.[25]
According to music scholar Theodore Gracyk, by 1992, when the film was released, even "classic rock" stations had stopped playing the six-minute song.[20] Gracyk suggests that beginning the tape in the middle of the song after "the lyrics which provide the song's narrative ... forces the film's audience to respond to its presence in the scene without the 'commentary' of the lyrics."[20] Helped by the song, the soundtrack album of the film was a major hit.[26]
In connection with this, a new video was released, intercutting excerpts from the film with footage from the original Queen video, along with some live footage of the band. The Wayne's World video version of "Bohemian Rhapsody" won Queen its only MTV Video Music Award for "Best Video from a Film".[27] When surviving members Brian May and Roger Taylor took the stage to accept the award, Brian May was overcome with emotion and said that "Freddie would be tickled".
Myers was horrified that the record company had mixed clips from Wayne's World with Queen's original video, fearing that this would upset the band. He said, "they've just whizzed on a Picasso." He asked the record company to tell Queen that the video was not his idea, and that he apologized to them. The band, though, sent a reply simply saying, "Thank you for using our song." This shocked Myers, who said it should be more like him telling Queen, "Thank you for even letting me touch the hem of your garments!"[28]
The final scene of the video was notable, where a pose of the band from the video from the original "Bohemian Rhapsody" clip morphs into an identically-posed 1985 photo, first featured in the "One Vision" video. This re-release (with "The Show Must Go On" as a double-A side) hit #2 in the US in 1992, sixteen years after the original 1976 US release peaked at #9.
The a cappella opening was too complex to perform live, so Mercury tried ways of introducing the song. When the song "Mustapha" became a live favourite, Mercury would often sub in that song's a cappella opening, which was easier to reproduce live as it was only one voice. During the Hot Space tour, and occasionally at other times, Mercury would do a piano improvisation (generally the introduction to "Death on Two Legs") that ended with the first notes of the song. Often, the preceding song would end, and Mercury would sit at the piano, say a quick word and start playing the ballad section.
Initially following the song's release, the operatic, middle section proved a problem for the band. Because of extensive multi-tracking, it could not be performed on stage. The band did not have enough of a break between the "Sheer Heart Attack" and "A Night at the Opera" tours to find a way to make it work live, so they split the song into three sections that were played throughout the night. The opening and closing ballads were played as part of a medley, with "Killer Queen" and "March of the Black Queen" taking the place of the operatic and hard rock sections. Those two sections, in virtually all gigs, were played as an introductory piece leading into "Ogre Battle".
Starting with the "A Day at the Races" tour in 1977, the band adopted their lasting way of playing the song live. The opening ballad would be played on stage, and after Brian May's guitar solo, the lights would go down, the band would leave the stage, and the operatic section would be played from tape. A blast of pyrotechnics after Roger Taylor's high note on the final "for me" would announce the band's return for the hard rock section and closing ballad. Queen played the song in this form all through the Magic Tour of 1986. This style was also used for the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert, with Elton John singing the opening ballad and then after the taped operatic section, Axl Rose singing the hard rock section. John and Rose sang the closing ballad part together in a duet.
The Queen + Paul Rodgers tours play a video of Mercury performing vocals and piano for the first segment, while the other musicians played along, with Paul Rodgers sitting out.[29][30] Footage from the Live at Wembley '86 was used for the 2005/6 tour, and the 1981 Montreal performance used for the Rock the Cosmos Tour. As with the Queen tours, the band went backstage for the operatic section, which was accompanied by a video tribute to Freddie Mercury and John Deacon, the latter having retired from touring. When the hard rock section began, the lights came back up to the full band on stage, including Rodgers, who took over lead vocals. Rodgers duetted with the recording of Mercury for the "outro" section, allowing the audience to sing the final "Nothing really matters to me", while the taped Mercury took a bow for the crowd. Rodgers would then repeat the line, and the final line ("Any way the wind blows") was delivered with one last shot of Mercury smiling at the audience. Commenting upon this staging, Brian May says that they "had to rise to the challenge of getting Freddie in there in a way which gave him his rightful place, but without demeaning Paul in any way. It also kept us live and 'present', although conscious and proud of our past, as we logically should be."[4]
The only time the song has been performed live in its entirety was in London on June 3, 2002 at the Party at the Palace, a gala concert event celebrating Queen Elizabeth II's 50th year as England's monarch. Roger Taylor and Brian May were joined by the cast of We Will Rock You, a popular musical in London theater at the time based on the music of Queen. The large chorus sang the multi-layered vocal parts, while the lead vocals were split between show leads Tony Vincent, Sharon B. Clarke, and Hannah Jane Fox.
12. God Save the Queen
Brian May recorded the anthem in 1974 before their Sheer Heart Attack tour. He played a guide piano which was edited out later and added several layers of guitars. After the song was completed it was played as an outro at virtually every concert Queen played. When recording the track May played a rough version on piano for Roy Thomas Baker. He called his own skills on the piano sub-par at the time. He performed the song live on the roof of Buckingham Palace for the Queen's golden jubilee in 2002.
Brian May has stated that he performed the song on the roof of Buckingham Palace as a homage to Jimi Hendrix's version of "The Star-Spangled Banner[6]
Guitar layering is one of May's distinctive techniques as a rock guitarist. He has stated, the technique was born in his mind looking for a violin sound. For tracks like this, he stated he can use "up to 30" layers, using a small Vox amplifier built by John Deacon, and later released commercially like the "Brian May" amplifier by Vox.
